


Afternoons and Coffee Spoons

by sevenall



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26032909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenall/pseuds/sevenall
Summary: And there it was, the mouth of the gift horse, a gaping maw of drool and death.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9
Collections: Fandom Giftbox 2020





	Afternoons and Coffee Spoons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sleeperservice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeperservice/gifts).



> The prompt was for Nightingale aging backwards. Perhaps a warning for Nightingale's stiff upper lip and fatalism with a hint of canonical suicidal ideation.

Thomas' hands are not shaking as he steps out of Abdul's office. What a dear friend Abdul has been throughout all these years, devoting his time to research that can never be published and to the everyday health of several practitioners with excellent digestions. A dear friend, who had to deliver a difficult message this morning.

"Thomas, I believe you have getting younger for a while now."

And there it was, the mouth of the gift horse, a gaping maw of drool and death.

"How much younger?" Thomas had asked before remembering that knowledge had never done him any good.

"According to my estimations, you are thirty-six years old."

There had been several options at this point. The first one, to laugh his head off. The second to tell Abdul not to be sad, because surely Abdul wouldn’t be alive himself to witness the decline into childhood, babyhood and nothingness, and anyway, there was always the chance of stepping on a demon trap tomorrow.

"The risk, Thomas," the imaginary David, who lived inside his head, had corrected him at this point. "Not the chance, the risk."

The third, to thank Abdel politely for the information and for booking an appointment with a psychologist before leaving with his coat and gloves on would have been the best. Thomas is still working on that one.

It shouldn’t have come as a shock, he thinks. He couldn't have expected to be in his early forties forever. That would have been unnatural. Macabre. Only, he had assumed he would start aging again. 

What it means is that in about eighteen years, Thomas will need a legal guardian and paperwork to explain the paradoxes of his education. He will start losing some strength, weight and height in his early twenties and going through puberty backwards is a horror he had never fully contemplated before. He will lose his teeth twice. The second time they will not come back.

There is no telling what he will retain and not in terms of memories and acquired skills, but it seems likely that he will lose the ability to read and write, his bowel and bladder control, and the ability to fix his gaze on a face or object. When his heart and lungs can no longer sustain him, even with the support of modern neonatal care, he will die, well before he can be separated into an egg and a sperm cell.

It may not be so different from dying of old age dementia, Thomas thinks. With the way he has used magic for more than a hundred years, the old age dementia would be a natural consequence. Only to be expected.

So. Nothing has changed from yesterday, except the knowledge sitting like a stone in his chest. Thomas will turn around now. He will go back to UCB and apologize to Abdul and listen to the many advantages of wearing a coat in February. He will discuss the situation with Peter and make his wishes about adoption clear. He will let Molly know, if she doesn't already. He will definitely not be hit by a bus or jump in a river on the way.

From far, far away, he thinks he can hear David laughing, as if he’d always known.


End file.
